Soaking in Samsara

Are you a small business owner? Let's talk!

Over the next few weeks, the product development team at LoMain Media will be conducting interviews with small business owners to learn more about expectations and needs related to online direct marketing.  In particular, we are interested to learn about your usage of Twitter as a real-time mechanism.    Have you used Twitter?  If so, for what end goal?  What worked?  What didn't?  What would make the experience more productive?   The real-time nature of the problem is of acute interest.  Some examples of real-time communication include:

• Promoting a very limited time offer, e.g. 2 for 1 drinks from 5-7 on Tuesday evenings.
• Filling inventory, e.g. a networking dinner for 8 people has 2 openings.
• Notification of an unexpected event, e.g. an entertainment event has been postponed.

If you are a small business owner in the Denver/Boulder metro area and would like to help shape a new product idea, connect with other local business owners and snag a free meal, please reach out to karynmgerman@gmail.com.   Or, DM my Twitter account - karyngerman.

Next Chapter - What Interests Me These Days

At 2.5 weeks into my very temporary retirement, I find myself exploring a number of new topics...or, perhaps more accurately, revisiting topics from previous lives.  As stated before, I have committed to building a new company with Perry Evans.      Early reaction has been extremely positive from prospective partners, customers and investors.  The timing for the concept is excellent and the product is one that I am anxious to use.  So, I am very excited to get it built!  

When I am not cooking fabulous meals, hanging out with friends and watching Oprah (I just said that to annoy Perry), I am researching and consuming content about the following topics:

• SMB 2.0 - OK, I don't think that phrase has been widely used and I realize that it is trite.  But, the time is ripe to help SMBs effectively use real time technologies in a more effective manner.  If you are a small business owner, I would love to hear from you about if and how you are using Twitter and Facebook for promotion, advertising, customer management, etc.  Would also love to hear how you are using other offline and online direct marketing tools.
• Real Time Web - there are many informative sources on this topic, including chatter about PubSubHubbub, RSSCloud and Google Wave.
• Lean Startup - I've been using agile methods since Rally went into beta in 2003, but there are some other very interesting ideas around lean product development  that are more relevant to building a brand new product than to growing existing products.   I'm always up for chatting with other local startup folks on this topic.  

Oh, and we are still in recruitment mode for great software engineers who love that early stage excitement.     If you are looking for a new gig and want to build new products rapidly using the latest and greatest tools/technologies/platforms, send me a note.  Perry has built and grown many previous companies and we are definitely aligned in our vision of what makes a great culture and working environment.  Though, oddly, he was not too thrilled about me offering to bring my cats to work.